One way to preserve land: Buy it, share it

BUTLER, Ga. — With a plastic cup, Jerry Williams dips up some of the crystal-clear water bubbling from a spring in the middle of the woods. He gulps the cool liquid -- a refreshing drink on a hot summer day.

"You don't find many places like this in Georgia anymore -- a place where pure water still flows right out of the ground," he says.

In an unusual venture, Williams, a 36-year-old neurologist with a passion for the outdoors, will permanently protect the spring -- and 2,300 acres of woods and meadows surrounding it -- as a private wilderness and hunting preserve.

It will be for the exclusive use of those who buy one of the 100 5-acre lots in the subdivision being built adjacent to the preserve in Taylor County in Middle Georgia. Williams says he already has commitments from 27 buyers, who will pay as much as $100,000 for a lot.

His first such preserve, a 726-acre project in Greenville County, S.C., sold all 31 lots in less than six months, he says.

The projects, he explains, are enabling him financially to achieve his ultimate goal -- the permanent protection of green space for future generations.

"I don't have the means to buy a piece of land and donate it to the state or a conservation group," he says. "This is the next best way of doing it."

He purchased the 2,800 acres for the Taylor County project -- dubbed Burban Creek Plantation -- from a retired Florida businessman who said he would sell only to a good steward of the land.

In legal agreements, Williams has pledged never to develop the preserve, a commitment that future owners also must obey, he says. He also will place the property in a conservation easement after he owns the land for a year -- a requirement mandated by federal law before an easement is granted.

For his efforts, Williams, who practices medicine in Greenville, is being called a pioneer in the concept of combining a small housing development with a large, permanent conservation preserve area to provide outdoor opportunities that will protect and enhance wildlife and the environment.

"His concept . . . is innovative and imaginative," says Lonice Barrett, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. "It is good anytime someone can set aside a significant amount of wildlife habitat and ensure its protection; it merits our encouragement and support."

Taylor officials have been desperate for growth, but that desire has sometimes brought the county into bitter disputes. In the 1980s, the county tried to bring in a hazardous waste dump, and in the late 1990s, it tried to get a 1,345-acre hog farm. Both projects died after strong community opposition.

"Dr. Williams' project is a perfect example of a clean industry that will benefit Taylor County and surrounding areas," says the DNR's Barrett.

Williams' concept is not entirely new. A few other residential developments around the country also have hunting preserves set aside exclusively for the use of property owners and their guests. Much of the 5,500-acre Brays Island Plantation resort development on the South Carolina coast, for instance, offers property owners the opportunity -- in addition to golf and tennis -- to hunt doves and deer in its cut grain fields and extensive deer woods.

Williams, however, says the hunting preserve will be the main attraction at his Taylor County development. There will be no golf courses.

"Hunters are very passionate about their sport and hobby and are willing to pay to have a place to protect as their own for their hobby," says Williams, a Savannah native who describes himself as a lifelong outdoorsman.

He says he is driven as much by his passion to protect the land as a desire to make a profit.

"In making a profit, I don't want to sell my soul," he says. "I intend to make a profit without raping the land."

He got his development sea legs with his South Carolina project, in which he bought 726 acres near Greenville and set aside 511 acres as a game preserve.

"There, you can hunt every morning and still get to work on time," he says.

He learned of the rolling, forested property from a patient. After hunting on it, he fell in love with it. When he found out that it was for sale and slated for development, he spent long hours trying to figure out how he could save it from that fate.

"I spent a lot of sleepless nights, staring at the ceiling, wondering how we were going to to do this," he said. "You could split up that property and make a fortune."

But Williams said he wanted to create a place where his 6-year-old son could go turkey hunting 20 years from now. It was then that he conceived the idea of developing only a portion of the land and protecting most of it in a preserve.